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The 2018 flight of the Buff-breasted Sandpipers: Data from the West Coast

Buff-breasted Sandpipers breed on the Arctic tundra from western Alaska, across northern Canada, to Baffin Island. They winter eight thousand miles to the south, on the grasslands of the River Plate Basin in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Their primary migration corridor is east of the Rockies, through the central United States. A secondary route is along the East Coast. They are always rare in fall migration along the West Coast, with four to fourteen individuals counted each fall between 2014 and 2017. In spring, they are almost unheard of (there is one record in eBird from Arcata, California in May, 1980).

Fall migration in 2018 was exceptional on the West Coast, with sixty-five individuals reported, five to ten times the norm. The figure below summarizes eBird data from the past five years in southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California.

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A few interesting points:

While fall migration generally spans from mid-August thru late September, the timing of records within that period are not strongly correlated with latitude. That is, it does not appear that birds are moving from north to south through the period. Each season’s latest records, from mid or late September, may come from British Columbia or Washington as easily as from southern California. That said, in 2018, the latest records are indeed from southern California. Moreover, the very few October records over the years (not included in the graph) are from southern California.

They are most reliable in the Pacific Northwest, only reaching California in years of relative abundance, such as 2018. The only location with records from every year is Salmon Arm Bay of Shuswap Lake, in the interior of British Columbia. Other sites, with records in all but one year, are Boundary Bay, British Columbia, and the south coast of Washington (e.g. Ocean Shores, Gray’s Harbor vicinity).

The vast majority of records are of single individuals. The only time more than four birds were documented together during these years was in 2018, with five birds at once at Sauvie Island, Oregon, and a remarkable thirteen at Boundary Bay.

In the years 2014-2017, Buff-breasted Sandpipers first appeared between August 15 and 19. In 2018, they did not appear until August 23, and most were relatively later than birds in previous years.

In 2018, there were several records from offshore California: one from the Farallons, two from San Clemente Island, and two birds seen together from a pelagic trip one hundred miles off southern California. These were all relatively early in migration, between August 25 and September 1. In contrast, most 2018 records from the Oregon coast were from the first week of September.

Juvenile Semipalmated Sandpipers arrived on 28 Aug this year at the southern end of SF Bay. This was the latest arrival date recorded for this age class in Santa Clara county over the past 33 years, by 12 days.